


Dead Dogs

by Poompoom



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Julian is less of a bastard man this time, Other, pat is lovely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 07:21:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18987952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poompoom/pseuds/Poompoom
Summary: Pat feels upset. Julian tries to feel something in his cold, dead heart. Dogs are involved.





	Dead Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> More Bastard Julian!

Pat was not a sad man. He had never seemed particularly glum because he was always a beacon of happiness, albeit with a child-inflicted arrow wound to the neck, and that awful little moustache. 

Julian had a ferverant dislike for moustaches. Well, at least the nineties version of him did. He would try to hide the photos from him at Cambridge in the late seventies, where he had sported an ugly little caterpillar on his top lip for the best part of three months. Some of the old fellows would bring it out at special occasions. Monty brought it up during the best man speech at his wedding (“Jolly awful, that little thing was! The same could be said for his-“ “THAnk you, Monty.”).

It wasn’t as if he could even attempt to grow facial hair now. And Pat was stuck with his little shoe brush for eternity. 

Facial hair aside, the stout little Scout leader had remained the kindest and most positive member of Button House’s ghostly little troupe. The same could be said for Kitty, but she sometimes had bouts of childish rage where she stomped around the house in a mood or days where she cried loudly for no reason in the drawing room. That duty was also shared by Thomas, who performed his lamenting flung on a chaise lounge. Julian himself was sometimes grumpy too, and surges in his poltergeistic powers mean that he could cast as many cups and mugs off of the kitchen counter as he liked, sending them clattering to the floor. It was especially funny when it woke up Alison at 3am. Julian had nothing against the woman; he was simply a bastard little man. 

“Pat, you appear to be upset.” Julian said, in an effort to make conversation. The small bloke hugged his knees on a stair near the kitchen.

“Aye, yes, I suppose I am.” Pat sank lower into his own arms and gave a little Northern sigh, like Northerners do. Julian didn’t have much regard for the lot of them before he died (things were much better in the South), but he had had a fling with either the Duke or Duchess of Newcastle at some point. Old university friends, they may have been. Julian was so coked off his head at the time that he could barely remember, drat!

“What’s bothering you?” Julian folded his arms. The last thing he wanted to be viewed as was empathetic. Pat stared up at him.

“Well, Julian, you know that awfully posh neighbour - what was his name, NatWest Beggingwind?”

“It was Barclay Beg-Chetwynde, but do proceed.”

“He had them lovely dogs, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Julian inspected his fingernails, which were the exact same length they had been for the last twenty-odd years. 

“Don’t you just love dogs, Julian?”

“More of a cat man myself. Had a Maine Coon- Margot’s decision. Caligula. Lovely fellow, actually.”

“Forgive me for asking, but wasn’t Caligula a Roman emperor?” Pat seemed mildly perplexed. 

“Yes, he was. Excellent name for a cat. He would have been a real mouser had we a pest problem. But rodents never bothered us in our Surrey house.” 

The only rodents of Surrey Julian could remember were the bloody Labour residents. And, come to think of it, Julian really missed little Caligula. He wondered what had become of the feisty feline. He hoped that Margot had taken care of him. She may have been a bitchy arse, but she did like the animals. She even stopped him from doing the Boxing Day Hunt, which earned some ridicule from Monty and the others, but sometimes he did think to himself that it was justifiable. 

“I found Barclay’s lovely golden lab when she was loose in the house- you know, on that eclipse night.” Pat reminisced.

“I still think Robin was saying Tootsie in Charades.” muttered Julian, rolling his eyes. 

“That dog certainly had some sort of gift. The sweet lass kept barking at me.”

“Animals seem to have ghost vision. Children also do, I think.”  
Youngsters rarely visited Button Hall, so Julian was yet to test his theory along with Robin, who was keen on scaring people shitless, regardless of size. 

“I reached down and I wanted to pet that dog. I really, really did. But I just couldn’t!” cried Pat.

“You see, Pat. That is because you and I are ghosts.”

“Tch, I know that!” mock malice tinged Pat’s voice and his moustache wiggled, exposing his rather large teeth beneath. “It just put me down a lot, is all. Been on my mind for a while. I had a dog back home, too. Staffordshire Bull Terrier, lovely little thing. Named Robert, after Lord Baden-Powell, you know?”

“I was never a Boy Scout myself, but I know of him.”

“I loved him. Kitty’ll tell you, she spent a long time comforting me after I’d died because I missed little Robert awfully. According to Robin, I took dying the worst. Almost inconsolable for a month, and prone to crying for a year! Sorry, Julian. I’m a sensitive person, but I feel as if you and Cap feel it’s unmanly.”

“I’ve had to live with Thomas these past few decades. I’m over it all. Doesn’t bother me. My tear ducts, though? Sealed shut.” lied Julian through his teeth. Daddy’s punishment for him crying when he was younger only led to more. 

“On my Death Day, my family always brought Robbie along, because they made a day of it. Little picnic ‘n’ all. I saw his muzzle get greyer and greyer, until, well, in nineteen-ninety, he didn’t return at all.” 

“Oh.” said Julian. “I’m sorry, Pat.”

“Ah, I’m over it now,” replied Pat, wistfully fiddling with his glasses and smiling, “he’s in a better place. I hope he died peacefully.” 

Julian felt what could be described as a pang in his heart. A heart which he considered so be mostly cold and dead- in his life, he had no time to care about sentimental things. In a way, he and the Captain got along well because they had no need for wishy washy rubbish. But maybe, after all these years dead, he was able to be nice, after all. He may have been a Tory in life, and mostly in death, but he was a Tory spending eternity with no trousers on, so it was slowly humbling him. He took his place next to Pat on the stairwell, and they stayed there in silence for quite a while. 

After the quiet had grown somewhat comfortable, Pat spoke. 

“I’ve asked Alison, but she’s having none of it.”

“None of what?” 

“Well, you see, the pigeon-“

“The ghost pigeon?”

“Aye, the ghost pigeon! I can touch him! He’s on the same plane of existence as us!”

“Oh, that’s interesting.” 

“Well, I asked her whether she would be able to get me a dog that way.”

Julian didn’t clock at first, but then an expression of shock passed his face. 

“Wow, Pat. That’s dark, isn’t it? Especially coming from you.”

“I was shocked at meself, to be honest. But a small sacrifice to make, well, for an eternal companion. I feel lonely.”

“But you have us!” said Julian, a little irked. Were he and the others not good enough companionship? 

“Not that I don’t appreciate you! I love you guys, squabble though you might. I’d just love man’s best friend to be with me forever more.”

“Pat, this is no guarantee whatsoever, but you know the powers I posses.”

“Julian Fawcett MP, the poltergeist of Button House.” smiled Pat. “Yes, I know.”

Julian got up, faced Pat and cracked his knuckles. 

“What breed were you thinking of?”


End file.
